This was a presentation I originally prepared back in 2005, but is probably even more applicable in 2009 given the impact using a GIS tool can have on visualizing data quality – customer addresses on a map! The next time you conduct a customer “data” assessment – try this! You can also see a high level data profile I prepared for this trade area of specific customers.

There are several different types of data quality tools in the marketplace today to essentially do one important thing – cleanse, validate, correct, and enhance your data.

In order to better understand what the “quality expectation” is for YOUR CLIENT a baseline (or scorecard) must be established for each source system. Data profiling is an ideal way to reveal and share the results with others in order to make an informed decision and rank your findings.

Several consultants have asked me over the last 6-8 months why don’t they (their respective firms) just build there own address management solution (code from scratch!) and purchase/license the CASS, NCOA, etc… content “only” directly from the USPS.

My answer in short is “let me tell you some reasons why not”.

1.) First and most important is many of the well known original suppliers of postal coding solutions in place today had to (and still go through) rigorous certification processes to insure their software and subsequent updates (versions) continue to comply with the USPS guidelines. (Note: Many of these well known suppliers I am referring to have been around since the early 1980’s when I began my career at Metromail. Now, that’s old. LOL)

2.) The number of “bugs” that have been reported to these same vendors over the years by their respective client bases (2,000+ clients in some cases) are best positioned to minimize risk for each “new license” of their products and services sold.

3.) The “people” behind the design, creation, and ongoing development of these (existing) postal products and services have 15+ (minimum) years of experience in the industry rather than a new team that may be just formed with little or no knowledge about this process.

4.) The barrier to entry for a new “postal coding” engine in 2009 (with the exception of a new add-on service you may want to bolt-on) to an existing postal coding engine is hard to envision. But, that’s my opinion.

In summary, my advice is to stick to creating some kind of exception process or create a client-specific data governance process (or standard) using an existing vendor solution offering that already has an established relationship with the USPS.

Here is a good example of one software supplier who exemplifies several of my points above:

GreyHair Software, Inc. goes beyond CASS/NCOA as major sources to power their address quality (best practice) offering which includes other alliances like the UAA Clearinghouse.

Let me explain further:

Here is a brief excerpt from an article last years published by GreyHair Software, Inc. Note: One of the executives at GrayHair is a past work associate of mine – Raymond Chin, Vice President of Product Management & Development. (See point #3 above)

Hold that thought, and read about how providers today are enhancing the traditional “postal” offerings today to expand beyond traditional USPS – CASS and NCOA… content!

Publication: Business Wire
Date: Wednesday, April 9 2008

GrayHair Software, Inc. and UAA Clearinghouse today introduced the most comprehensive set of offerings for managing Address Quality and reducing Undeliverable-As-Addressed (UAA) mail. By using source data from the USPS([R]) next-generation Intelligent Mail([R]) Barcode with change-of-address data from publishing and telecommunications organizations, best-of-breed solutions are now available for suppressing and/or redirecting addresses.

This will improve responses and reduce the cost of business mailings, thus enhancing the return-on-investment of direct mail programs, and making a significant contribution to the bottom line.

Address Quality (Best Practices) today are providing more “value” than just save postage ($$$) and improved deliverability of a piece of mail… like days past.

The benefit of good address quality (best practices) is also a big plus for customer data integration (CDI) initiatives… resulting in increased customer match/merge/link/search scenario’s, especially in customer (MDM) hubs where clients today are centralizing disparate customer data sources across the enterprise into a single view of a customer.

To my fellow consultants… and postal software vendors… you are welcome to add your own comments or share with us your unique “product” differentiators.

For those of you with one or more datahygiene processes, procedures, and standards… are probably good candidates for creating a data governance program within your organization or in the case of a vendor… a niche offering that entails your best practices and lessons learned since its inception.

To find out more about data governance and companies who have “niche” offerings in this area:

For a limited time CleanList.com is offering a FREE Data Quality analysis – just tell them you read about it on datahygiene.com

CleanList.com are experts in cleaning and enhancing your customer files, databases and mailing lists. They support many of the world’s largest companies, as well as hundreds of smaller organizations. Their services are provided in a controlled and secure environment where protection of your data is their number one priority.

The main data center is in Canada but they operate throughout North America.

For a limited time or until someone notify’s us at datahygiene.com to discontinue this offer… CleanList.com is offering a FREE Data Quality analysis – just tell them you read about it on datahygiene.com

Furthermore, If anyone has used this secure service and would like to comment about their past experience with Interact Direct Marketing, please let our readers know more.